Author talk with Patti Bender, "Happy Landings: Emilie Loring's Life, Writing, and Wisdom"

Description

“After all, living is the greatest thing any of us have to do. Why not make an art of it?”—Emilie Loring

 Emilie Loring is a name unfamiliar to most but once upon a time, the seasonal Blue Hill resident wrote 20th-century novels of romance and adventure that captured readers worldwide. Romantic comedies, mystery men, courageous women, and the happy endings of today draw a direct line to the entertaining prose of Emilie Loring’s romance novels.

 Emilie Baker Loring’s novels sold a million copies during her lifetime and more than thirty-seven million in a dozen languages since her passing. Loring’s books brim with intricate plot twists, intense imagery, and page-turning excitement, setting her works apart from the drugstore novels of the early- to mid-twentieth century. Happy Landings: Emilie Loring’s Life, Writing, and Wisdom shares this best-selling author’s uplifting story for the first time. With never-before-published photographs, privileged access to the Loring family archives, and twenty years of meticulous research, Patti Bender reveals a woman who lived as she wrote, with intelligence, humor, and wisdom. This is a woman’s story in swiftly changing times for women; a charming story with little-known anecdotes about prominent authors and the story of a writer in the making, with advice and encouragement for aspiring authors.

 After two decades of research and a lifetime of reading and re-reading her works, Patti Bender unexpectedly found herself the world’s expert on Emilie Loring. Bender left a thirty-year college teaching career to complete the author’s biography and pursue writing full-time. Her website, The Emilie Loring Collection (www.pattibender.com), is a gathering place for Emilie’s lifetime fans. A native of Tempe, Arizona, Bender earned a B.A. with summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa honors in English and history at Trinity University, an M.S. in leisure studies at the University of Illinois, and a Ph.D. in human motor control at the University of Southern California. She lives in Lawrence, Kansas.